Building

The Yolo County Superior Court is based in the Yolo County Courthouse which was built in 1917. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and is a beautiful and interesting example of classical revival architecture. It was rennovated throughout the mid-1980s, and is therefore a curious hybrid of classical design and then-current safety-features and technology. There have also been some technology upgrades in the courtrooms since then.

Courts

There are four divisions of the Yolo County Superior Court: Civil, Criminal, Drug, and Traffic. Most Courts are in and around the historic courthouse. Criminal Arraignments are handled in Dept. 9 across the street. Traffic Court & Small Claims (Dept. 10) and Adult/Juvenile Drug Court & Domestic Violence Court (Dept. 12) are located in the new facility at 275 First Street in Woodland, about a block from the historic Court House. Dept. 11 is across the street on Court Street. Dept. 16, is located on W. Beamer Street. Juvenile Court is in Dept. 8. See also: Juvenile Justice System. Judge Fall currently presides over Dept 4. Judge Rosenberg currently resides over Dept 2.

Court records

Most of the documents that pass through the judicial system are public record—from speeding tickets to rental disputes and even murder trials. If you're so inclined, you can have a gander at them by going down to the basement. The civil and criminal records are kept in separate rooms—look for the signs. A small number of computers are in each room that allow you to look up cases. Once you've found a case you want to look at, you can either have copies made or simply browse the case file at the window. Older cases may be stored off site.

Local Rules

Yolo County has its own set of local court rules, in addition to the basic rules set out by the State of California. ("Where the Yolo Local Rules conflict with state law, including but not limited to the California Rules of Court for civil law and motion, state law governs.")

Legal Self-help

The Court has a family law facilitator who assists those who do not have a lawyer in Family Law areas such as divorce, child custody, and spousal/child support. It also provide several resources through its webpage. For other areas of law, the court offers a frequently asked questions section which mostly deals with administrative matters. There are several legal-self help books that are available through the Yolo County Law Library in Woodland, including the popular 'Fight your Ticket and Win' book by Nolo Press. Nolo Press publishes books in virtually every major area of law, which are available at all area Libraries and Bookstores.

Legal Help

Comments:

2010-09-14 11:35:56 Traffic court services is unhelpful. I have called in with my citation number for the past four weeks and the automated system cannot give me any information on my citation (same goes with their online system). I get transferred to an operator and she tells me the automated system is working and then says she cannot do anything else. She would not even give me the contact information for anyone else I could talk to. No email address is listed for technical help either online. All this over a stupid law about biking with earphones on. —hankim

hankim- I had a similar experience, come to find out it actually takes quite awhile for the citation to register in their system. I believe it took mine a month. - AmLin

2013-09-28 15:14:53 They are building a new courthouse on Main Street. What will they do with the old one? —gshenaut

They will still use the historic courthouse - as a courthouse. The new one is intended to be a perm home to some departments and I believe Traffic which is currently in a trailer next to the yolo county offices which is next to the courthouse ~Daubert